Evolutionary theory states that all of our planet’s diverse species evolved from a common ancestor through a very gradual process which took millions of years. Our scientific textbooks are filled with drawings of man and other species gradually developing into the complex creatures we are today. The theory rests on the premise that the six million species which inhabited the earth are unmistakably linked. Think about that. An evolutionary reality would mean that every animal that lived would have a gradual progression leading up to its existence, every single one. The fossil record is by far the best evidence for the theory of evolution and from where most evolutionists make their claims. So the big question in regards to the fossil record is: Does that record support a gradual progression of ancestry linking the species, or does the record point to an abrupt appearance of earth’s ancestors? Do the vast varieties of species found in fossils appear with fully functioning limbs, or do we see a gradual progression from, say, a fin to a leg?Under the Darwinian paradigm, the transition between species and the gradual mutations that led to the variety of body parts and sizes would take millions of years and therefore would be well represented throughout the fossil record. Does that evidence indicate a gradual progression among differing varieties, or do we see the sudden appearance in the layers of strata which would support the creation account?Let’s admit that the millions of fossils found over the past two centuries have given us huge insight into our past and stand as the most reliable source of information about the history of life on earth. For evolutionists it’s the Olympic Games; winner take all. Now, although the record is not a complete depiction of what happened, it is certainly very adequate to determine which direction the evidence is pointing. Here we will use the most popular data used by the evolutionists, whether we agree with it or not, I have found that the best way to debunk a myth is by using the information the evolutionist believes and provides, rather than by introducing new science, and then get into an endless debate about who's science is better. So going forward, we are not necessarily agreeing with the information, rather just using it to undermine what they believe. The greatest support for evolution would be a record demonstrating this gradual progression with intermediate sub-species between groups of species, while the greatest support for creation would be a record which demonstrates a rapid emergence of the different groups. A transitional form or intermediary represents critical support for the evolutionary model as it stands between two species as the progressive changes are taking place. With so many species on the record, biochemist Michael Denton points out that there should be literally millions of transitional forms.1Two factors must be present to qualify as such. One, it must have lived during the appropriate time, that is, between the two differing category of species; and second, we must see some degree of limbs (i.e. wings, fins, hands, brain) in a state of development rather than fully functioning limbs and body parts, which in most cases would indicate a separate unique species.Let’s start by weighing in on what the leading evolutionists of the past two centuries had to say about the issue of transitional forms. “The number of intermediate varieties, which have formally existed on earth, must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.”2Those are not the words of some Bible-thumping fundamentalist, as secularists would want you to believe; they are the words of Charles Darwin, whom I think knew something about the issue. Like every good atheist, he goes on to assure us that the discoveries will be forthcoming.So the question is, has the discovery of countless species over the past 150 years worked to support his theory or refute it? Well, over that time we’ve discovered thousands and thousands of new species in the geological strata and yet at best, only a handful of what some would qualify as transitional forms. Yet as a percentage of the differing species, we have far less of what would qualify as an intermediate than we did in Darwin’s day, even using the most open-minded approach. Michael Denton affirms this when he writes, “The infinitude of connecting links has still not been discovered and the fossil record is about as discontinuous as it was when Darwin was writing the Origin.”3 Here’s what Steven J. Gould, Harvard paleontologist and the leading evolutionist of the twentieth century, had to say about the subject: “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.” More specifically he notes, “The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1). Status. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; Morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2) Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed.”4 In order to overcome this grave problem, he produced a new theory called Punctuated Equilibrium. He envisioned evolution making sudden leaps forward. It’s the theory of evolution without the evolution.

Today many claim that we've discovered thousands of transitional forms, while others put the number closer to 100. But how many transitional forms would we need to support the theory of evolution. With over six million species, the number would be at least six million, or one would think. But the problem is far greater than that. A whale is a mammal that lives in the water, so it is presumed that it was a land dwelling animal and then went back into the ocean. Therefore the evolutionary path should be short and evident in the record. Here's what Mathematician, philosopher, and biochemist David Berlinski had to say about the evolution of the whale. "What do you have to do to change a cow into a whale and still retain a similar breathing apparatus. Essentially everything about the cow has to change. We have a sense of the numbers. Anytime the sciences avoid numbers it is immersing itself in an unavoidable miasma. Skin has to change, the breathing apparatus has to change, a diving apparatus has to be put in place, the eyes have to be protected, hearing has to be altered, salivary organs have to change, feeding mechanisms have to change. The calculations are not hard, I stopped at 50,000 changes. All these changes are coordinated. What does this suggest we should see in the fossil record? An enormous plethora of animals; intermediaries. That won’t solve all problems but at least it will put it in the ballpark of a quantitative estimate."

So what have we learned from the fossil record, because the scientific textbooks clearly illustrate drawings of the gradual progression one would expect from an evolutionary reality. Well, let’s go back in time to a period in earth’s history called the Cambrian Era approximately 545-500 million years ago. It is during this period where in a small window of time we see a very dramatic event known to paleontologists as the Cambrian Explosion. During this “big bang of biology” we see the sudden emergence of virtually every body type or phyla known to have existed, without a trace of evolutionary forerunners. Prior to this event the earth was inhabited by single-celled life for billions of years and therefore this stands as the clearest evidence of the abrupt appearance we would expect from a creation model. For the evolutionists, it’s their greatest enigma because of the absence of previous complex organisms to cloud the evidence. If there was anything before it—a cat, a mule, or a bee—you could bet it was evolution. But there was nothing, therefore Darwin’s tree of life no longer has a trunk. From there we move on to four other eras in earth’s history, primarily the Permian, the Triassic, the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous, where the strata reveals mass extinctions followed by an emergence of predominantly new, vastly diverse groups of life. In the case of the Permian extinction, the devastation was so enormous it is believed that 95 percent of earth’s inhabitants were destroyed, leaving only small marine life.Yet in a small window of evolutionary time we see the earth quickly inhabited by a new group of more complex and diverse organisms. As geologists and paleontologists probe the extinction/recovery events that have happened, what they are finding is that species exist relatively unchanged, yet have a predisposition toward extinction, not speciation. New species seem to emerge during a small window of time and appear with fully functioning body parts which are designed for their particular environment. Now I’m going through this very quickly, but my point is that the fossil record does not confirm the predictions of the evolutionary model, which displays the smooth curve of increased complexity still taught in our schools today.I’m not in any way stating that there are no organisms that display the features of a transitional form under the evolutionary paradigm; what I’m saying is that there is not nearly enough to support the theory, and many of the ones they are claiming can be discredited with an honest approach. Let’s look at just two of the evolutionists’ most popular claims from Jonathan Wells’ groundbreaking book, Icons of Evolution. Folks, if you have any doubt that evolution is shrouded in misrepresentations and irresponsible bias, read this book as it documents the downright forgery of Darwin and some of his followers.In our public school textbooks, Archaeopteryx is still publicized as the missing link between birds and reptiles and is often called the first bird, having lived between 125 million and 165 million years ago. About the size of a modern bird, it was covered in feathers and had small wings and a long tail, along with other birdlike features such as a wishbone and a reverse big toe. So first impressions would indicate that such a creature would add credibility to the idea of a missing link, as the feathers alone had only been found on one dinosaur around that period. Here’s the problem: nothing leading up to Archaeopteryx remotely resembles such an organism with feathers and wings, and we don’t see birdlike species for tens of millions of years after Archaeopteryx was extinct. Because it stands alone with huge gaps in the fossil record, like most species, it supports the findings of a new species rather than an evolutionary progression predicted by naturalists. Despite this overwhelming acknowledgment among paleontologists, textbooks across America still hale Archaeopteryx as sound evidence for Darwinism.5 The problem with the handful of transitional forms that evolutionists do claim is that they have fully functioning body parts. Evolution as we know it would have to produce millions of partial limbs, partial wings, teeth, and fins. It would have to appear gradually and in the right time. That simple logical standard debunks almost anything that is masquerading as a transition between two ancient species. Now, the fossil record does reveal animals appearing bigger and more complex over time, particularly after each extinction period. But that’s not evolution. To affirm the theory, the species must be linked to one another. And that has been the ongoing problem with evolutionary theory. While scientists such as Henry Gee are forthcoming with these problems, the problems rarely make their way into the textbooks that are infiltrating our schools, now the product of an ideologically driven secular establishment. Gee, a chief scientific writer for Nature, assures us that “the intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything about the possible connection through ancestry and descent.”6Finally, let’s weigh in on the most important missing link of all, that of man or homo sapiens. I want to remind the reader of the massive psychological, philosophical, and theological implications the idea of being descendents of apes has on individuals and society. And therefore the paramount responsibility we have of ensuring the data we interpret and the claims we make are precisely accurate and conclusive.The quest for the missing human link is the holy grail of paleontology. It’s a winner-take-all quest for fame and fortune. Looking at the many blunders along with the instances where the media rushed to judgment, one can begin to understand the enthusiasm behind such a discovery. Who can forget Piltdown Man, which stood as the missing link between man and ape for almost forty years, only to be discovered they were mostly human remains meticulously altered with house paint and a wire brush? In their enthusiasm to affirm their theory, scientists forgot one thing—the science part.That said, I truly believe the majority of scientists are honest and eager to get to the truth behind every new discovery. And therefore we should not let a few exceptions cloud our judgment. The scientific community has developed into a very disciplined, self-correcting institution with the ever increasing practice of peer review ready and willing to expose fraudulent claims even though educators hate such crazy notions.Without a doubt, the search for these early primates is the most exciting field of scientific discovery. The science behind it when properly done is solid and therefore can’t be ignored. Nor should it be. I’ve seen too many Christians blow off science thinking they were being pious. Yet no such claim can be attached to this kind of reckless disregard. If you honestly believe your faith is true, then the scientific findings of our time will support it, plain and simple. Only those who lack confidence in their beliefs, be it Christian, evolution, Muslim, or whatever, will go about silencing or ignoring those things we’ve come to know as fact. And there is not one discipline—be it science, theology, philosophy, or psychology—which has not had to weather criticisms for their forefathers who lacked that confidence.Before we delve into the facts, let’s look at the two competing models and what both predict in the findings. On the evolutionary front, we would expect to find a gradual progression from a primitive ancestor or an apelike species to a modern human. The progress should flow, not only morphologically, but in behavior and mental capacity as well. The creation account is a bit more restrictive because it has modern man appearing suddenly in one location. The Bible distinguishes man from every other creature because he is made in God’s likeness and was given the breath of life. Having a spirit implies that man is moral and spiritual. He will possess a capacity for beauty and stands apart in his intellect.For the remainder of this section we are indebted to Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, who have done a meticulous job of compiling the scientific data in Who Was Adam?With no less than 680 references, this book splits with traditional bias and lays out the facts.7In east, central, and southern Africa, at least eleven different hominid species lived between four and two million years ago. They fall into three categories: Paranthropus, Kenyathropus, and Australopithecus, who was a bipedal ape but distinct from chimpanzees. About four feet tall, studies indicate that he knuckle-walked like the great apes.8 About two million years ago we see the emergence of the first to be assigned the homo genus in east and southern Africa. Living between 2.4 and 1.5 million years ago, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis both were a bit bigger than their predecessors. And although they still had apelike features H. habilis may have been the first to use crude tools.9 While many of these remains were fragmented skulls and small bones, a nearly complete skeleton was found of Homo ergaster which appeared in the fossil record around 1.7 million years ago.10 While he improved on the tools of his predecessors by shaping rocks, there would not be any advances in tools for another million years.Homo erectus lived in Asia between 1.8 million years ago and 100,000 years ago. Some still believe erectus to be the same species as ergasterfrom Africa. Around 900,000 years ago a new hominid appeared, having migrated from Africa to eastern Eurasia.11Homo heidelbergensis, Homo antecessor, andHomo sapiens idaltu used more advanced tools but still had apelike features including a forward projecting face, a flat forehead, and a chinless lower jaw. Although they had a larger brain that their forerunners, few scientists believe they were early humans as they still behaved very much like apes. Because of the small samples available, often just a partial jaw, paleoanthropologists have had a hard time understanding the range of morphological variation among these species. It’s this lack of knowledge that has created such a wide range of speculation linking these different species, none of which is likely to get resolved anytime soon.12As we move closer in time, our knowledge gets better with the discovery of Neanderthal in 1856. Since then we have uncovered 30 complete skeletons dating between 150,000 to 30,000 years ago. Though anatomically similar to humans, Neanderthal was morphologically very different. Their brain size was larger than any hominid we’d seen to date and their use of tools had also taken another leap forward. Originally anthropologists claimed an evolutionary connection to modern humans, but by 1997 DNA tests proved that no such connection existed, and they are now believed to be a distinct species.13While most of these animals walked upright, they were physically and behaviorally very different from modern humans. Simply put, they were apes with limited intelligence and little capacity beyond survival.While there is debate over some skull fragments dating back 100,000 years, the record is absent of any human remains from 80,000 to 40,000 years ago. At 40,000 years, there’s little argument among researchers that modern humans make a sudden impact on the fossil record. Significant agreement can also be found in the simultaneous appearance of cave art, fishhooks, jewelry, needles for sewing, and even musical instruments. An advanced intellect, craftsmanship, and inventiveness along with symbolic expression and ritualistic behavior set Homo sapiens apart from their predecessors. These advances explode on the scene with the advent of modern humans, putting a huge gulf between mankind and hominids.14 That gulf can be measured in time, mental capacity, behavior, and physical appearance.

So after the DNA test on Neanderthal which concluded that they are not related to humans, the evolutionists knew they had a problem because Neanderthal looked so much like man, it was their best hope. The solution was to claim man is linked to Homo erectus, even though they went extinct 100,000 years before mankind shows up in the fossil record. And of course we can't get DNA beyond 100,000 years so we can never know for sure. But if we are not linked to Neanderthal who looks much more human, why would anyone think we are linked to Homo erecus, which is so ape like?While many questions still remain about our past, I urge the reader to familiarize him or herself with the Reasons to Believe creation model and look to its predictions in the coming years. Then decide for yourself whether mankind’s fate lies in the jungles of Africa or whether we are made in the image of God. ​

Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach about Evolution is Wrong, (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc. 2002), 111-136

Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, (New York: The Free Press, 1999) as quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004)

Fazale Rana and Huge Ross, Who was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man, (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005)